


Suzanne Takes A Stand

by Jacqueemackee



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Declarations Of Love, Gen, Internal Monologue, Making Friends, Mother's Love, Moving On, Passive-aggression, Personal Growth, Star struck, but she gets better, empty nest, mama loves you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-07 22:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17968958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacqueemackee/pseuds/Jacqueemackee
Summary: Dicky came home for 2 weeks in July. That was it.He flew down, bought a load of boxes, and rented a truck for the trip back.By the time Jack arrived 10 days later, he had made over 20 pies and packed up his entire life in Georgia.Dicky’s graduation party, the family’s 4th of July celebration, final visits with MooMaw and a few others, and before she knew it, her only baby was all moved out and giving her a tearful good-bye.He said he loved her. He said he was going to miss her. Just not, apparently, enough to stay.





	1. Empty Nest

**Author's Note:**

> If You Only Knew still has all my love and commitment but I desperately needed to write and I am not physically capable of writing M and E fics when the littles are anywhere around (even the safe for work parts!) so this came out instead. 
> 
> Yes, I am still having feels about that phone call home. I picture Suzanne as being flightly partly because it's hard for her to talk about certain topics and partly because of conflict avoidance and partly because it's so hard for her to deal with painful emotions and so much easier to just change the subject and talk about safe things like pie.

Dicky came home for 2 weeks in July. That was it.

He flew down, bought a load of boxes, and rented a truck for the trip back.

By the time Jack arrived 10 days later, he had made over 20 pies and packed up his entire life in Georgia.  
Dicky’s graduation party, the family’s 4th of July celebration, final visits with MooMaw and a few others, and before she knew it, her only baby was all moved out and giving her a tearful good-bye. 

He said he loved her.

He said he was going to miss her.

Just not, apparently, enough to stay.

She had sniffled and choked up and gotten all teary-eyed with him but held it together as they drove down the street, waving until the truck turned a corner, and then she had gone inside, staggered upstairs, and collapsed on his bed for a good hard cry.

After the pillowcase was thoroughly soaked, she’d wiped her eyes, blown her nose, and looked around.

Well. He hadn’t taken everything.

Old clothes that were too worn out to donate were piled up in one corner. There were still old school papers overflowing one of his desk drawers. Random ephemera he hadn’t valued enough to take with still scattered the shelves.

Along with his skating and high school hockey trophies.

And nearly all of his skating medals.

Suzanne frowned. Dicky had mentioned once that he was worrying about measuring up to Jack, about being captain 2 years after him, about proving his worth when Jack had a MVP trophy called the Calder and a MVP trophy called the Conn Smythe and a Stanley Cup championship ring and Lord knows what else. Yet he’d left all his awards and trophies behind.

She pulled out her phone and sent off a text.

Jack must have been driving because the reply came moments later.  _Jack said I should take them with and display them but he won’t put any of his up so it wouldn’t be fair._

And a minute later.  _Besides, they’re all from a long time ago._

Another minute.  _They’d just be sitting in a box taking up space._

5 minutes.  _Sorry I left them for you to deal with, Mama. Do whatever you think is best._

And wasn’t that just the way?

Dicky goes off to college leaving her with a quiet house and an empty bedroom.

And leaves again and again, each time sparking more questions from the neighbors about whether he’s going to “do the right thing” by coming back home and settling down in Madison after graduation or if “those people” up north were going to convince him he was too good for family and "traditional values" and keep him away forever.

And then refuses to even come back for the summer.

And then tells the whole wide world that he and Jack are in love before even telling his mama he’s seeing someone.

And then  _left her to deal with_  all the score of questions from friends and neighbors with no warning and no time to prepare and almost no answers.

It wasn’t until days later that she found out they had already celebrated their one year anniversary, were strong and stable and committed, that this was the first rash thing they’d done and not a fling or sudden impulse for either of them, that the rich and fancy millionaire athlete Jack Zimmermann loved and adored her little Dicky and was absolutely dedicated to him.

That would have been nice to throw in the face of that awful neighbor who thought Jack was using her son as just a “fun time” and that horrid lady in the grocery store who implied her baby was a “puck bunny” who threw himself at wealthy athletes and led them astray. 

 _Do what she thinks best_  indeed.

No.

No, this isn’t her. This isn’t right.

Her little Dicky is all grown up now and she…. she has to let him go. Not be a bitter ol’ sourpuss because he has his own life now and this isn’t his room anymore.

No, it will always be his room.

He can always come home.

He’s never coming home.

Not to stay.

She has to do something with this room, and soon, or she’s going to sit in here day after day surrounded by all the emptiness and left-behind pieces and never move on.

She has to be proactive.

She heads downstairs and starts putting together a pie crust.


	2. A Gesture Both Big and Invisible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For so long she had watched from the sidelines. 
> 
> Fussed and encouraged and baked and questioned but always held back, always been a spectator. Listened and waited as he told her not quite everything about his new life, didn’t try to find his vlog or his twitter or wherever else he was sharing his real thoughts those days.
> 
> And where had it got her? Looking like a fool the day after the Cup with no answers and no word from her boy.
> 
> She had to do something. 
> 
> Had to show him- him and Jack- that a mama’s love was forever and she was so, so proud of them both.

Pie didn’t bring any answers and neither did eating lunch so now she’s kneading dough for the seven-grain bread recipe that Dicky swore she just had to try for Ricky’s sandwiches.

Now, what is she going to do with his old room?

The guest room with its queen bed and lovely handmade quilt is also her sewing room and it’s getting awfully cramped. Dicky’s old room is bigger. If she swapped beds, made his room the guest room and did it up all nice, set up his old twin as a day bed in her sewing room just in case they had lots of people, she’d have more space of her own, be less likely to have to tuck away an entire project just because they had sudden company. Why, if they have 2 people stay on the queen, another on the twin, another on the sofa bed, their house could be bursting with loved ones one day. Noise and sound and laughter and bustle like this house hasn’t had since Dicky’s high school hockey friends last visited.

Now, how should she paint it? Decorate it? She had to-

No. This is not what she had to be doing.

The bed was not the issue.

Dicky was the issue. And she had to do something.

For so long she had watched from the sidelines. Fussed and encouraged and baked and questioned but always held back, always been a spectator.

Sat back and watched as he researched colleges and sent in applications, committed to Samwell despite all her protests and worries but no real interference, waved and cried and watched as he left for that first semester, came home, left again.

Listened and waited as he told her not quite everything about his new life, didn’t try to find his vlog or his twitter or wherever else he was sharing his real thoughts those days.

And where had it got her?

Looking like a fool the day after the Cup with no answers and no word from her boy.

Still waiting, for him to call, for him to explain, to give answers, to open up so she knew what she needed to say to let her baby know she still loved him. And since then, waiting for when he had time, waiting for when he was up for talking, not utterly worn out with being a senior and being captain and being out and being the boyfriend of a famous athlete and so many other things she would never fully understand.

No, no more waiting.

She had to do something. Had to  _show_  him- him and Jack- that a mama’s love was forever and she was so, so proud of them both. That Jack was a fine boy and was welcome anytime, welcome to stay forever, be a part of the family even.

Show him that she could be a proud grandma one day- if they were thinking along those lines, if they might think along those lines in the future, if they’d listen to her if she dropped hints about wanting grandbabies.

She had to do something.

Just- not public. Not yet.

It was hard enough slipping into the basement of a church 25 miles away for PFLAG meetings every month. She knew the Atlanta Pride Parade was in 3 months. The rest of the group was going and had even given her a “Proud Mom of a Gay Son” shirt in case she changed her mind.

She wasn’t ready.

Private steps were easier. A picture of Dicky with Jack in her wallet. A family picture on the wall from last July that was taken with Jack’s camera on a timer so he could be in it.

But it had to be big. Something real. Something the nasty busy-bodies would never see.

The room. Dicky’s room. That was it.

She hurriedly gave the bread a few more kneads before tossing it into her big greased bowl, sealing it, and scraping and scrubbing urgently at the dough on her hands before whisking upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I doubt Suzanne calls Coach "Coach" when it's just them, I picture them young and dating and he's just Ricky. She has her Ricky and her Dicky and that may be part of the reason Bitty doesn't fight more when he gets to Samwell and discovers it'll be Shitty and Bitty. Since Coach calls Bitty "Junior" I sometimes wonder if Coach is ERB as well but decided to go by his middle name, particularly if his dad was also ERB and he wanted to distinguish himself.
> 
> Suzanne, Suzanne, Suzanne.  
> I know so many parents of LGBTQIA+ young people like her.  
> Their home has pictures of their child with their partner, they visit their baby and their plus one regularly, phone calls and skype and letters and Christmas presents, the work.  
> But outside the home.... silence.  
> As if they don't keep in touch.  
> Don't visit.  
> Barely even know what their own flesh and blood is up to.  
> Suzanne's got to break the cycle.  
> But how?
> 
> Atlanta Pride is in the fall because of the heat and used this site to guess at a church that would house a chapter of PFLAG: https://www.gaychurch.org/find_a_church/
> 
> Still feels so freaking weird trying to write something that doesn't involve sex....

**Author's Note:**

> Whoo boy! Oh Suzanne. What's going to happen to you? Down there in rural Georgia all alone with your only little boy off gallivanting in the society papers up north. And everywhere you go, there's the TALK. From people you know and people you don't, all with their own opinion about your little Dicky.
> 
> Not beta'd and written while greatly distracted so on top of deliberately trying to write Suzanne as flighty and easily distracted, there may be real mistakes! Please let me know so I can fix them.


End file.
